


spinning with the stars above

by gravinnen



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravinnen/pseuds/gravinnen
Summary: “Yeah, well, that’s pretty much all I had going for me. That and my incredible muscles, obviously. And I didn’t even enjoy it that much.” Grizz shrugs off the jacket, throws it at Sam just because he can. “How cliché, really. Boy meets boy. Whole fucking world disappears. They get together. Tale as old as time.”





	spinning with the stars above

It’s early morning, the sun not even fully up yet and the sky a hazy pink and grey that, for some reason, always makes Grizz feel a little turned on, when he almost lets it slip for the first time. He’s not even doing anything special, something that could warrant for a secret that big to be set free, just walking around with the boys on a predawn check up of the empty streets that Allie thought was necessary and shooting the shit, talking about girls and what they want to do to them, debating which fast food chain they miss the most, wondering out loud if any of them could get the committee to okay a business venture as promising as the very first Burger King in New Ham.  
  
And yet.  
  
Almost.  
  
“I feel like Luke’s too nice to manage anything, you know.” Jason says. “You need to like, be strict. People need to show up on time, be dedicated to the brand, fear you a little. I’m just not sure you inspire that in people, Lukey.”  
  
“You’re probably right.” Luke says, a slightly miserable tone to his voice. Grizz notices the tips of his ears are tinged red from the cold.  
  
“Clark, maybe. You do have a reputation for beating people up, that could help you in this case, I guess. You’d just have to hire someone to do the bookkeeping for you. And someone to make the roster, decide on the shifts. And like, everything else. Actually scratch that, you’re definitely not going to be manager of our Burger King. It’d close in a week and we’d be stuck doing this bullshit forever.”  
  
“Fuck you.” Clark says happily. “I can manage a Burger King.”  
  
“Can you though?” Jason kicks at a pebble. “Thing is, you’d need like, an actual cow. Are burgers made from cows? Or pigs? I don’t even fucking know and I can’t even google it. Anyway, something that has meat on it. And we don’t have that.” He looks at Grizz. “Yet.”  
  
“I’ve been doing some research.” He shrugs. “Not the Burger King part but like, the meat part. I’ve managed to collect some maps that could maybe clear some things up. Took a look at them yesterday, now we just have to try and figure out what roads used to be where. It’s early stages, but still.”  
  
“I am ignoring all of your disclaimers. All I hear is a bright future for us in fast food. What I went to school for all along.”  
  
“Do you guys remember when we had Google Maps?” Luke sighs.  
  
“Hell yes.” Clark says. “I can’t believe we’re going to have to invent Google Maps all over again.”  
  
“Well, you definitely aren’t.” Jason says.  
  
Clark flips him the bird. “I’m getting really fucking tired of this abuse.”  
  
“ _Anyway_. I never really realized how cool old school maps are. I mean, it’s not as fancy as Google maps but they’re pretty, at least. Real. They make you work for it.” Grizz puts his hood up, allows himself to briefly think back on yesterday evening. Him and Sam pouring over the maps, fingers brushing, then, a truly great make out session with Sam sitting on his desk and Grizz fitting perfectly between his legs, only having to bent down a little. It had all kind of Pirates of the Caribbean vibe to it — Sam had even held a compass at some point, just for kicks — and that somehow really did it for Grizz. “I think Sam and I might have found an empty field on the map that looks promising. Now all we need is to figure out if it’s still there or not. Might get on that today.”  
  
“Who found what now?”  
  
Grizz pauses. “Sam.” He says slowly, casually. “He, you know, found the maps for me. In the library. Where he works. And where I was. And he was. In the library.”  
  
“Right.” Jason peers into the distance, where they see the lights of one of the houses are turned on. “I’m cold as fuck, gonna take a nap for an hour, warm up. See you guys later. Let me know if you find a cow in the meantime.”  
  
Grizz gets home about twenty minutes later, crawls into bed next to where Sam still is, pushes his nose in Sam’s warm neck, bites at his ear and shakes him slightly until Sam wakes up and looks at him.  
  
“I was literally this close to coming out to like, half the football team earlier.” He signs _coming out_ , slowly. That had felt important to learn somehow.  
  
Sam give him a sleepy smile. “Brave of you.”  
  
“I mean, not really. It was an accident. Felt kind of good though.” Grizz gets deeper under the covers, bumps his knees against Sam’s. “I think I might want to tell people soon. Some of them, at least.”  
  
“Soon.” Sam nods, turns around again, his back against Grizz’s chest. Grizz closes his eyes.  
  
He’s already half asleep when his phone buzzes. He grabs at it blindly, opens a message that Jason sent in their group chat. A picture of a girl he vaguely knows, wearing a sightly unflattering pair of jeans. Grizz thinks she might be called Sarah. _Found the cow!!!!! lol_  
  
Grizz nuzzles closer. “Soon.” He mutters and is kind of, disgracefully, glad that Sam can’t hear him.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The second time he nearly spills is a lot less wholesome. They’re all in Allie’s kitchen, without Allie, weirdly enough, the boys sat at the breakfast bar, Sam a bit to the side drawing something on a Post It and Grizz trying to figure out how the dishwasher works. He’d ask Gordie but he’d gone off somewhere to say some calming words to Allie, probably, and Grizz is very confused. Also, slightly pissed off at the hostile turn the conversation had taken earlier, the fact that he’s stuck with his dumbass teammates forever instead of the theatre crowd in upstate New York he’d seen himself hanging out with in the upcoming years and that nobody seems to care that they might starve soon.  
  
“I tried calling you like, five times yesterday.” Luke tells him.  
  
“Hm?” Grizz asks, distracted.  
  
“I tried calling you yesterday. You didn’t pick up.”  
  
Grizz tries another combination of the three buttons he thinks will most likely get the fucking thing to turn on. “What were you calling me about?” The dishwasher makes an annoying beep that Grizz assumes was only ever installed to annoy him personally.  
  
“Nothing.” Luke says. “Just wanted to talk.”  
  
“I was busy.” Grizz turns around, walks over to Sam to hand him the box of stuff that goes in the dishwasher to see if maybe he can figure it out.  
  
“Doing what?” Luke sounds legitimately hurt. Grizz is unsurprised.   
  
“Just stuff.”  
  
“Well, what kind of stuff.”  
  
“ _Stuff_.” Grizz says, getting slightly annoyed now. “Important stuff.”  
  
“I guess I just don’t understand what you were doing that was so important that you couldn’t pick up any of the five times I called you.”  
  
“Well, Luke.” Grizz says through gritted teeth, kicking at the dish washer in a rare display of violence. “It just so happened that when you called —” He kicks at it again. “ — _all five times_ —” A slap with the flat of his hand now. “ — I was literally balls deep in — ” He’s about to keep going when Sam starts to cough loudly. He’s looked up from the box with dishwasher tablets to stare at Grizz in a slight panic. A pause. Grizz swallows, tries to think fast. “ — Research.” He says. “Balls deep in research. Just. So much research. That’s why I couldn’t pick up. You know.”  
  
Luke looks at him weirdly, then at Sam who’s still trying to get out of his coughing fit. “Right.”  
  
“Right.” Grizz agrees enthusiastically.  
  
“Well, as long as it’s research about that Burger King. I am desperate for a big, unhealthy fucking burger.” Jason says. He’s face down on the kitchen counter, leaning on his arms, his voice sounding muffled. “Seems like a valid reason to ignore a call from a sensitive bro.”  
  
“I’m not sensitive.” Luke mumbles offhandedly, still switching his gaze from Sam to Grizz in a way that Grizz thinks does actually show a certain sensitivity.  
  
“True. You’re the epitome of manliness.” He says. “Anyone have any idea how to turn this dishwasher on?”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Thing is, coming out is a process. A process that Grizz thinks will end up being mostly easy, seeing that everyone has better things to worry about than whether or not he’s into dudes now. Probably. Hopefully. Stuff like the upcoming actual fucking hunger winter and the possibility that they are not even in the same galaxy as their parents might give Grizz an edge that he never thought he’d end up being thankful for.  
  
But still.  
  
It _is_ a process.  
  
Something that’s not going to start and end with him saying that he likes Sam and that Sam likes him back. Something that people are going to have opinions on, that people will need time to get used to. That annoys him somehow.  
  
“Did your parents know?” Grizz kicks at Sam’s knee with his foot to get his attention. They’re on opposite ends of the couch, reading, their legs entangled where they meet in the middle. A record’s playing softly in the background and Sam’s wearing socks with lemons on them, which Grizz finds, for some inexplicable reason, unbearably cute.  
  
“Know what?”  
  
“About you being gay?”  
  
“Yeah. Told them a couple of months before all of this went down.”  
  
Grizz nods, stares into the scented candle he’d lit earlier. It’s called _flannel_ and part of him thinks about just presenting it to people and letting them come to their own conclusions.  
  
“And that was fine?”  
  
“Totally fine. Everything’s fine when Campbell’s your brother.”  
  
Grizz laughs. “Small mercies.”  
  
“Small mercies.” Sam reaches out to rub his thumb over Grizz’s ankle. “Most people at school knew as well. Never got a boyfriend out of it, though.”  
  
“This truly _is_ a night of small mercies.” Grizz closes his book as a moody, soft cover of _heaven is a place on earth_ starts playing. His dad really did have excellent taste in records. “Honestly, we owe New Ham everything. Can you imagine if you and I hadn’t ended up here? We would have never happened. Never ever. You’re like, way out of my league.”  
  
Sam snorts. “Are you kidding? You were on the football team. You’re literally wearing a letterman jacket _right now_.”  
  
“Yeah, well, that’s pretty much all I had going for me. That and my incredible muscles, obviously. And I didn’t even enjoy it that much.” He shrugs off the jacket, throws it at Sam just because he can. “How cliché, really. Boy meets boy. Whole fucking world disappears. They get together. Tale as old as time.”  
  
“A living, breathing Jane Austen novel.”  
  
“For real. Matter of fact, Sam Eliot, is that an ankle I see? That is _indecent_. Be still my beating heart.” Grizz pokes at Sam’s stomach with his foot, sinking back in the silence and feeling sad and happy in way that he never did before all of this happened. “I should have asked you out.” He mumbles. “I should have asked you the fuck out. I would have dated you so good. Taken you out to the lake. Prepared a picnic basket. Made a neat little playlist.”  
  
“I’m like, super deaf.”  
  
“You _are_? I was wondering why you never commented on my insane singing skills.” Grizz gets up then, walks up to Sam and grabs his hands, pulling Sam up, then closer. “They call me Beyoncé Visser. It’s true.”  
  
“When exactly do they call you this? And who? I never noticed.”  
  
“Well, that’s a you problem.”  
  
Sam starts to protest, tells him _rude_ but Grizz pulls him even closer, against his chest, arms wrapped around him. “Hush now, my child. Just trust me. They do.”  
  
He starts humming along with the song, then, leaning his head on the top of Sam’s head, swaying them from right to left while he sings along. He can feel Sam relaxing into the embrace, leaning his chin against Grizz’s chest to look up and all Grizz can think is _thank you, thank you, thank you_. Because miracles happen and this one happened to him. He’s just about to sing along to the song, serenade Sam with a nice _we’ll make heaven a place on earth_ before maybe, proposing him with a blowjob right here and now when he hears a cough from the doorway. It takes a second for him to realize the cough is not from Sam, nor from him but when he does it hits him like a ton of bricks.   
  
Grizz looks up, shocked to the core, a cold wind in their breezy evening, which makes Sam looks up and there’s Becca, wrapped up in about seven different sweaters and a look of utter confusion on her face.  
  
“Grizz.” She says slowly, only looking at Sam. “And you.”  
  
Silence, he steps back, pushing Sam away in a way that he knows he will be ashamed about forever, and more out of habit than because he genuinely thinks that’s a way out of this. Grizz doesn’t have to look to his left to figure out what Sam looks like now. Panic, shock, a weird feeling of guilt nestling in the pit of his stomach for a reason he can’t quite figure out but knows is there. He knows because he feels the same.  
  
“Grizz. And you.” She says again. “ _Grizz_. And _you_.”  
  
Grizz doesn’t know how to interpret the tone of her voice, decides to just go with it, wait it out. Sam starts to say something but Becca firmly lifts her hand, tells him, “How about giving me a second to work through this?”  
  
And how about that. Grizz wants to give her all the seconds she needs. Preferably while he is not here but rather, far, far away from this place, except that leaving Sam alone is not even close to an option.  
  
“I did not see this coming at all. Like, at all. Which makes me feel things. Both positive and negative.” Becca says after what seems like an hour, shooting Sam a meaningful look that Grizz prefers to not think too much about. “But fuck me, if this isn’t the sweetest thing I have ever seen.”  
  
“You can’t tell anyone.” Sam says quickly, clearly not for his own benefit and it breaks Grizz’s heart.  
  
“That’s okay.” He says softly, reaching out to grab at Sam’s hand, then thinking better of it.   
  
“What do you take me for?” Becca asks, sounding slightly hurt. “I would never. Never.”  
  
“I know.” A pause, then, “I know. I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s _okay_. You being here. It’s okay.” Grizz says, a little bit louder now. “I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”  
  
Becca turns to look at him, really look at him, almost like she hadn’t really noticed him before. She takes a minute to take him in, her gaze slowly washing over him. He feels exposed, like he’s been turned inside out, like his heart is out of his body and Becca is debating what the hell she’s going to do with it. “Like what?”  
  
“Just, like this.” He flaps his hands vaguely, like that will make his point any clearer.  
  
“I mean I could have done without the soundtrack but other than that, this is a fine way to find out, I suppose.”  
  
Grizz can’t help but snort, a sound that seems out of place in this truly life altering moment. “You dare come into _my_ house and insult _my_ excellent music taste.”  
  
“I’m just saying, be grateful you can’t hear this, Sam. This is like, a legit reason to break up with someone.”  
  
“Are you _kidding_ me?” Grizz clasps his hand to his heart but is glad for Becca’s cheek, the way she seems surprised, still, but not angry, not disappointed.  
  
“Anyway.” She says pointedly. “I think myself and Sam need to have a little talk.”  
  
Grizz nods, shoving Sam her way and nearly making him trip in his eagerness to please. She scrunches up her nose at him and it feels good. It feels like the world, whatever world that is, is still turning. He figures being caught with the boy of his dreams, dancing and singing along to a cover of _heaven is a place on earth_ is as good a way as any to come out.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Becca kind of opens the floodgates, the push Grizz was waiting for. He tells Allie a couple of days later, just before he starts his shift for the night. She’s supportive but distracted, tells him she’s proud of him and happy but never stops looking over his shoulder where two girls seem to be fighting over a shoe box containing the last pair of black Converse in a size five that can be found in this town.  
  
In the end, she clasps him firmly on his shoulder. “I understand this is like, a really big deal for you and I’m grateful you told me but I’m very busy. Can we talk later?”  
  
Grizz nods, knows that’s probably not going to happen but grateful that she tries at least. “Sure.” He says. “Later.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
He tells Gordie while warming up for the yoga class he’d decided to set up a couple of weeks ago in a desperate attempt to keep tempers cool, calm and collected. Halfway on his way to the sun salutation and just before the students of Grizz’s _I’m down dog_ class arrive, he tells him, “I’m into dudes, by the way. I’m with Sam now.”  
  
Gordie leans forward in an excellent down dog position, says, “Makes sense.”  
  
And Grizz figures, it does.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
He tells Will over breakfast, who tells Kelly with Grizz’s explicit permission and then all of a sudden, it’s not really a secret anymore. Just something to be discreet about a little bit, and it’s not like the world felt particularly heavy before but somehow, now that he can give Sam a big, loud kiss on his cheek where at least some people can see, life does feel a little bit lighter. Less of a burden, a waiting game. More like it has actually started.  
  
And that just leaves the guys. The people he wants to tell the most and yet the people he wants to tell the very, very least. Weird how life works like that sometimes. Grizz tells himself he’ll do it tomorrow, next Tuesday, as soon as everything has calmed down a little bit. He tells Sam to stop asking about it, then feels guilty for snapping at him. He thinks about how enough people now know to let something slip accidentally. That he’d hate for the guys to find out from anyone else. That there’s pride in just going for it. That Sam deserves it. That he deserves it.  
  
It’s another early morning check up of the town that he thinks, this is as good a time as any.  
  
Grizz coughs. “Guys.”  
  
Of course the boys are all too caught up in some game Clark is playing to even hear him. They’re bent over Clark’s phone, Jason nearly tripping over a bump in the road, yelling at him to _swipe right, swipe right, motherfucker_. Typical.  
  
“Guys. I need to tell you something. Something important.”  
  
That makes a least Luke look up. “What?”  
  
Grizz hesitates, throws his head back to look at that same grey and pink sky, can’t seem to get the the words to leave his heart, his throat. Jason and Clark turn now, too, looking at him expectantly.  
  
“What did you do?” Luke demands.  
  
“I, uhm.” That’s all he can manage. The great coming out that couldn’t be. That wouldn’t be.  
  
“What?” Luke says, sounding slightly nervous now. “Grizz, what did you do?”  
  
He coughs, like that’s going to help matters. “I don’t know how to say this.”  
  
“Grizz, are you _kidding_ me?” Jason says, and that makes Grizz lose his breath slightly. _He knows, he knows, he knows_ on endless repeat. “You didn’t get some girl pregnant, did you? That’s an accidental pregnancy face if I ever saw one. Tell me you did not get someone pregnant.”  
  
It’s not what he expected. It’s worse, somehow.  
  
“You got someone pregnant?” Clark doesn’t seem worried at all, more like he’s thoroughly enjoying every single second.  
  
_“You got someone pregnant?”_ Luke takes a step towards him, sounding slightly hysterical. “How? _When?_ I can’t believe this. Grizz, I can’t believe this. We’re literally stuck in the worst timeline and you decide this is the moment to not use a condom.”  
  
“Who is it?” Jason demands. “I need to know.”  
  
“All those girls. And not even a scare for you. Not even once. And now you throw caution to the wind. There’s no hospitals, Grizz! There is no baby food! This is so _incredibly uncool_ of you.”  
  
“Incredibly uncool.” Clark agrees, with a big smile. “Who is it?”  
  
“Yes, Grizz, who did you decide to have unprotected sex with?” Luke stares him down, starts to sound more and more like he’s going to rant about abstinence and how God is always watching in five seconds.  
  
“Sam.” Grizz says because, well, he _has_.  
  
“Sam? Sam who?”  
  
Another cough. “Eliot. Sam Eliot.”  
  
He can almost see the cogs turning. Clark’s furrowed brow as he’s trying to figure out which girl called Sam Eliot he must have not known about for all these years, Jason staring at him like the sky has suddenly turned purple, Luke’s mouth forming a perfect O.  
  
“Wait.” Clark says.  
  
“Wait.” Grizz agrees.  
  
“ _Wait_.”  
  
“Sam is a guy.”  
  
Grizz briefly thinks about pretending to be shocked, just for kicks, then thinks better of it. “He sure is.”  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
Grizz shrugs. “Nothing, I guess. Everything.”  
  
“So, you’re like, into dudes now.” Jason doesn’t present it like it’s a question, more like news he wasn’t sure he wanted to know about, which Grizz guesses, it might be.  
  
“I mean, I always was. It’s not really a then and now thing. But yeah.”  
  
Another silence, then, “You know, I thought the yoga classes were weird.” They all turn to look at Clark. “What? That’s a girly as hell thing to do.”  
  
“Don’t say that, man. That’s some toxic masculinity right there. I don’t fuck with that.”  
  
“I mean, you sort of do.” Jason tells them. “Not with like, _toxic_ masculinity. But with masculinity. You fuck with masculinity. Because Sam’s like, not toxic, but he’s masculine. Because he’s a man. Get it?”  
  
“Jason.” Luke says, finally. “That is terrible.”  
  
“That is terrible. And yet, very funny.”  
  
Clark scratches at his beard, nods in agreement. “Very funny.”  
  
Then there’s silence, none of them really knowing what to say. Grizz shoves his hands in his pocket of his jeans, takes them out to put in the pocket of his jacket. “So.” He says, dragging the word out.  
  
“I mean, it’s better than a baby, I suppose.” Luke says. “Right?” He turns to look at Clark, who has taken out his phone and started up his game again.  
  
“For sure.” Clark says, barely even pretending he has any idea what Luke has just said.  
  
Jason bends over the phone as well, starts pressing buttons to Clark’s dismay. “Honestly, all I want is for you to get me a cow. I don’t really care who you’re fucking as long as you get me _a cow_.”  
  
That makes Grizz smile. Jason smiles back, a big, broad grin that makes it all better.  
  
Luke pushes at Grizz slightly. “Okay.” He says.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
It’s all okay. Somehow, it ended up being okay.

**Author's Note:**

> English isn't even my first language and yet here I am, writing about drama schools in upstate New York like I know anything. title is from the mayries version of heaven is a place on earth because I can okay! also, [I am on tumblr](https://koninginnen.tumblr.com/). hope you enjoyed.


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